the chief objects of worship and centres of cult. And
this was sometimes done with the official sanction of the gods
themselves, as expressed through the oracle of Delphi.

The sanctity of the old image was sometimes transferred to the new one;
a striking example of this is seen in the case of Artemis Brauronia on
the Athenian Acropolis. It had been the custom for the garments
presented to the goddess by her worshippers to be placed upon her
primitive statue; and when a new and worthier representation of the
goddess was placed in the temple in the fourth century, we are informed
by inscriptions that dedicated garments were sometimes hung upon it,
even though it was a statue from the hand of Praxiteles. It sometimes
happened that the old and the new statues stood side by side in the same
temple, or in adjacent temples, and they seem then to exemplify the two
kinds of idolatry--the literal and the imaginative--the one being the
actual subject of the rites ceremonially observed, and the other being
the visible presentment of the deity, and helping the worshipper to
concentrate his prayers and aspirations. Here the art of the sculptor
had the fullest scope, and it is in such cases that he could, as
Quintilian said of Phidias, "make some addition to the received
religion."

This duality was, however, the result of accident rather than the normal
arrangement, and, so long as the primitive image remained the official
object of worship, it was difficult, if not impossible, for the new and
more artistic statue to have its full religious effect. In many cases,
probably in most cases, it was actually substituted, sooner or later,
for the earlier embodiment of the deity. Sometimes the early image,
which was often of wood, may have decayed or been worn away by the
attentions lavished upon it; we hear of a statue of which the hand had
perished under the kisses of the devout. We hear also of cases in which
it had been entirely lost--for instance, the Black Demete of Phigalia,
an uncouth image with a horse's head; here, when a plague had warned the
people to replace it, the AEginetan sculptor Onatas undertook the task;
and he is said to have been vouchsafed a vision in sleep which enabled
him to reproduce exactly this unsightly idol. It would not seem that
such a commission gave much scope to his artistic powers; but it is
noteworthy that the Phigalians employed one of the most famous sculptors
of the day. Elsewhere the conditions wer